The human heart generally includes four valves: the mitral valve, the tricuspid valve, the aortic valve, and the pulmonic valve. Although all critical to heart function, the most critical one is the mitral valve. The mitral valve is located in an opening between the left atrium and the left ventricle. The mitral valve acts as a check valve and is intended to prevent regurgitation of the blood from the left ventricle in the left atrium when the left ventricle contracts. In preventing blood regurgitation the mitral valve must be able to withstand considerable back pressure as the left ventricle contracts.
The valve cusps or leaflets of the mitral valve are anchored to the muscular wall of the heart by delicate but strong fibrous cords so as to support the cusps during left ventricular contraction. In a healthy mitral valve, the geometry of the mitral valve ensures that the cusps overlie or touch each other to preclude regurgitation of the blood during left ventricular contraction. In contrast, the geometry is enlarged in an unhealthy mitral valve, which may prevent the leaflets from fully closing, resulting in mitral regurgitation.
Many known methods for treating mitral regurgitation resort to open heart surgery, typically by repairing the valve with a device or modifying the valve. Such procedures are expensive, extremely invasive requiring considerable recovery time and, most significantly, pose mortality risks. Further, such open heart procedures are particularly stressful on patients whom already have a cardiac condition. As such, open heart surgery is typically reserved as a last resort and is usually employed late in the mitral regurgitation progression. Moreover, the effectiveness of such procedures is difficult to assess during the procedure and may not be known until a much later time. Therefore the ability to make adjustments or modifications to the prostheses in order to obtain optimum effectiveness is extremely limited. Later corrections, if made at all, require still another open heart surgery bringing all of the risks and disadvantages discussed previously.
Other methods for treating mitral regurgitation have been proposed or implemented with some success, such as percutaneously implanting various clips in the chordae or at the valve cusps to assist in limiting valve regurgitation or prolapse. Although these methods have had some success and are non-invasive, the procedures are long and cumbersome, often taking several hours to complete. Further, due to leaving an implanted medical device in the heart, should the patient need additional subsequent procedures if, for example, regurgitation at the mitral valve again becomes an issue or the original regurgitation at the mitral valve is not corrected, another implanted device to correct the problem may be impossible at which time the patient's options may be limited to open heart surgery.
Based on the foregoing, it would be advantageous to employ a less invasive procedure to treat mitral regurgitation or any other types of valve regurgitation that overcome the disadvantages and issues resulting with the current invasive and non-invasive heart implants.
A variety of features and advantages will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading the description of various embodiments set forth below.